Tomorrow will see the “biggest disruptive action in NHS history,” according to reports, as thousands of junior doctors go on strike.
Health administrators have cautioned that when British Medical Association employees strike, it will have a significant impact on essential services.
To prevent further burden on the already constrained systems, people are being cautioned to refrain from “risky behavior.”
The strikes are predicted to affect close to 300,000 appointments.
The event will start tomorrow and last until early Saturday morning.
Patients have been urged to continue to use 999 and A&E for life-threatening conditions but to use NHS 111 online, pharmacies and GPs for non-urgent issues
The strikes are the latest in a long-running dispute between public sector unions and the government across Britain and follow three days of walkouts in March.
Junior doctors are trying to secure a pay rise of around 35 percent, and the union has argued that since 2008-2009 medics have experienced a real-terms pay cut of more than 25 percent.
Matthew Taylor, the NHS Confederation chief executive said: ‘It is going to be an incredibly tough week. There will be 10-11 days where the NHS is not able to operate at full strength.
‘There is no point in hiding the fact that there will be risks to patients,’ he added, before urging the public: ‘Try to avoid risky behaviour because the NHS is not going to be able to provide the level of care it wants to provide.’
With the health service set to lose the ‘largest part of their workforce’ due to strikes, Mr Taylor said the government and British Medical Association (BMA) need to start negotiations.
Meanwhile, further strikes are feared in education after teaching unions rejected the government’s offer of a 4.5 percent pay rise and £1,000 one-off payment.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said that while the service had been ‘preparing extensively’ for the strikes, ‘managing additional pressure’ was becoming more difficult.
He said: ‘This is set to be the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history, and the strikes tomorrow will bring immense pressures, coming on the back of a challenged, extended bank holiday weekend for staff and services.
‘Emergency, urgent and critical care will be prioritised.’
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, health secretary Steve Barclay argued that the BMA’s pay demands were ‘widely out of step with pay settlements in other parts of the public sector’.
Last month the health unions Unison, the Royal College of Nursing and GMB urged their members to back the government’s pay offer of a one-off bonus and consolidated pay rise of 5 percent for the 2023-24 financial year.
Barclay said: ‘Unfortunately, the decision by BMA junior doctors’ leaders to maintain an unrealistic position meant we were unable to make progress with talks.
‘It seems they are intent on maintaining a militant stance rather than working with the government and NHS management to meet the best interests of their members and of patients.’
The health secretary warned that the walkouts, which coincide with Easter school holidays, Ramadan and Passover, will pose a ‘considerable risk to patient safety’, echoing comments by senior NHS figures who are braced for severe delays to in-patient treatments.
A three-day strike action by junior doctors in March resulted in more than 175,000 patient appointments and procedures being cancelled or postponed, placing added strain on the health service as it tries to clear a waiting list backlog of about 7mn patients.
The NHS Confederation has estimated that as many as 250,000 operations and appointments could be cancelled or delayed as a result of the four-day strike.